Transitions: Bridges in Time

Transitions: Bridges in Time

For someone who hates transitions, I always find myself right in the middle of one. The only redeeming factor is that, and this is the crucial point, I’m never in the same place twice. In other words, I’m not stuck in a transition, I am always moving from one transition towards another. What this means for me is that I need to adapt to the process of change which I need to experience in order for me to grow, develop and succeed. I need to find my “settled” spots or resting places in different ways.

Transition is a process over time. It is defined as “the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.” Change is an element of transition and is defined as to “make or become different.”

Changes can take place without transitions but transitions cannot take place without changes and the key factor that determines transition is movement; without movement, there is no transition.

Often, someone in a transition will describe having a feeling of being unsettled, not grounded, out of place and in the unknown. Because transitions are based on movement, this description sounds similar to “motion sickness”. When I am on a boat and the water is choppy, to prevent my motion sickness from coming up, I look at the horizon. The horizon provides a consistent point that is steady. I trick my body into thinking that I am steady and not bouncing around. I am using my senses (visual) to settle my body’s sense of movement (kinesthesis).

Psychologically speaking, the sense of sound (auditory) works in the same way to trick you into feeling settled and grounded as you move through the transition process.

Music contains all the elements of transition; it is structured by time, it moves, it contains changes. In the definition of transition, the following is included:

Music: a passing from one key to another; modulation; a brief modulation; a modulation used in passing; a sudden, unprepared modulation.

Transition is embedded in music. What’s very important to highlight here is that all modulations in music arrive at a resting place and point of resolution.

Reframing:

If you find yourself stuck in your transition process, reframe it and see yourself at a resting place before you move on towards your resolution.

In her blog New Notebooks, Gretchen Schmelzer writes about the transition for children from summer to the beginning of school as compared to adults not on an academic schedule. She suggests that adults who can benefit from a new beginning, acquire a “simple low-tech, high yield intervention”; a new notebook.

“A new notebook is magic. For less than a dollar, you can still start again. You can ask new questions, or old questions. You can write or draw or scribble your way back to your center—and your excitement. Notebooks allow for messiness and scribbles and cross-outs. They allow you to play again with ideas. They require that you use your hands in old fashioned handwriting—they connect your body to your brain.

So let September bring a new start to whatever you are facing. Let it bring its energy for beginning and growth. Grab a bright, shiny, new notebook—and be a student of your own work and passions again.”

My Call To Action:

I invite you to get that new notebook and include a great writing instrument(s) and do the following:

I have included the link to a piece of classical music (approximately 7 minutes in length). Take your notebook and writing instrument and play the music. As you are listening to the music, allow yourself to enter into the dialogue of the instruments and write, draw, scribble (all of the above) your transition, your bridge in time. At the end of the piece, you will find a wealth of information to help you see where you are in your process.

If for any reason you didn’t write or draw during the music, make sure that after you have finished listening, you then write or draw anything that comes to mind about what you heard, imagined or felt during the listening.